


Forsaken

by Stargazer1116



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Grace - Freeform, Grief/Mourning, Kylo Ren Redemption, Redeemed Ben Solo, Redemption
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-18
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-10-31 05:19:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17843213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stargazer1116/pseuds/Stargazer1116
Summary: One shot: In another force connection, months after Crait, Rey stumbles on him in a surprising state of mind, and finds herself in the position to offer grace to Kylo Ren.This has been rolling around in my head for a while, but was sealed when I saw this art by @winterofherdiscontent: https://twitter.com/winter_of_her/status/1081504927812186113





	Forsaken

In the scant few times the bond had opened since Crait, Rey had sensed many emotions from him.

 

Rage.

 

Betrayal.

 

Confusion.

 

Hostility.

 

Today, though...today she felt something that was just out of reach of defining.

 

Was it loneliness? Regret? Sadness…

 

She kept her back to him, knowing without even looking what the expression would be on his face. It would be the same as her last sight of him, and she just didn’t know if she could take those mournful eyes pleading with her again…

 

“Why does the force keep doing this? Why can't it just leave us alone?” she murmured, not even intending for him to hear.

 

He did, though. And in response, a sound tore from his chest so guttural...so lost...she couldn’t stop her head from turning.

 

As soon as her eyes fell on him, her breath caught.

 

To say he appeared haggard would be kind.

 

He was slumped down, resting against what she could only guess would be a wall wherever he was at. His clothes seemed to be wet and rumpled. She shivered as she guessed at what they could be wet with when she took in the blood that coated his hands.

 

His hair...that glorious, shiny, covet-inducing hair hung stringy and limp. His cheeks were sharper...appeared to be hollowed out beneath his prominent cheekbones. The violet half-moons under his eyes were darker and deeper.

 

Finally, her eyes met his. Well, not really met, for they were unfocused somewhere over her shoulder.

 

She was wrong. They were much, much worse than when she last saw them. They were bleeding with emotion and yet listless somehow together. They were haunted and brimming with despair.

 

It hit her with the wallop of a happabore’s tail. These eyes...these eyes were Ben Solo’s. And these eyes were at the end of their rope.

 

She searched his force signature for clues to why. What had caused this state? How had he gotten here....and what did it mean?

 

Finally, he spoke. His voice was raw and hoarse.

 

“It’s done.”

 

Without forethought, she drew near to him. Close enough to touch, yet she did not.

 

She kept her tone soft and soothing as if approaching a scared child or a wild beast, for he was both.

 

“What is done, Ben?”

 

At the sound of his name, his eyes finally joined hers. She saw them wince, but he answered.

 

“The First Order...Hux...the Knights...all of it. I burned it all down. It’s done.”

 

She gazed down at his hands, needing to know…

 

“Are...are you hurt?”

 

A sad, sick kind of snort answered her. “I am nothing but hurt, Rey. As long as I can remember, everything I touch and everything I am...hurt.”

 

She swallowed hard, his state starting to bleed into her.

 

“Ben…”

 

With that he jumped to his feet, showing that at least physically, he was not so dire.

 

“No….NO! Not Ben!“

 

She could feel his pain start to wrack his form, the emotional oozing into the physical.

 

“I understand that you are hurt...and feel…”

 

In spite of all that he was feeling, he looked down at her and smirked.

 

“No...you don’t understand." He leaned over, his eyes boring into hers, while his voice turned hard. "I did this, Rey. Me. I killed Ben Solo and all that he was...just as I now killed Kylo Ren and all he was."

 

He took a step back, and his tone grew quiet again as the remorse spewed out. "This is what I was meant for...all I am good for...my destiny. Destruction. I burned it down...all of it...and it still wasn’t enough…”

 

His voice broke off.

 

Ah...

 

That is what this was about. Finally, he was not mourning his loss and abandonment...this was about…

 

He must have thought that somehow, if he killed the First Order, that it could atone…

 

He was such a tangle. The web of his family’s neglect and Snoke’s predatory manipulation was mingled with all that he was and all he had done.

 

His experience was a system of behavior and response. Softness and affection brought him the same from his family. Acting out in the confusion of his abilities brought rejection. When he obeyed Snoke and performed well, he was praised. When he stepped outside of that, he was pummeled with an agony that was unfathomable.

 

And now...now he thought that action would be his salvation.

 

But here he was, at the end of all the actions he knew to do, and it wasn’t enough. It would never be enough to undo...

 

He was having a reckoning with himself, and there was nothing left to do...no penance existed that was vast enough. He couldn’t _do_ anything.

 

He had slumped down again, curled up in himself on the floor in an attempt at self-consolation in the midst of his self-disgust.

 

Rey looked over at him, her heart at odds. On the one hand, he deserved this...needed this. He needed to face what he had done and grapple with the gravity of it.

 

On the other hand, she thought as she chewed her lip, his desperation whispered to her own solitary soul. She knew what it was to struggle with despairing loneliness and the madness it could drive you to...the actions it could make you consider…

 

So she sat there, wondering what to do with Ben Solo who had been forsaken by everyone and had therefore forsaken everyone…even himself.

 

The only thing she could think of…

 

...the only thing…

 

...is exactly what she had longed for on desolate nights when unending darkness sought to mock and steal what she chose to still believe in...hope.

 

It kept her locked to Jakku with ceaseless days scavenging enough to sustain her.

 

The hope...the hope that she was not alone. The hope that someone would come back for her. The hope that she was worth it.

 

The hope that she was loved.

 

And that hope...that is was led to her crawl over to Ben’s ravaged form. That is what spurred her to curl up at his back...to wrap her arms around him...and to draw him to herself.

 

Ben needed to know someone cared...and that he was worth more. In spite of all he had done...he needed someone to scurry down into the pit with him and tell him that even there, in the midst of his darkness and all the sins he had committed…

 

...that he was more.

 

He was more than Snoke's lies had made him think he was, and more than his family feared.

 

She felt his form tense even more--as if he didn’t know what to do with it. The unfamiliarity of soft, loving touch was so foreign to his forlorn soul.

 

_When had someone last touched him like this? When had arms of love and not hands of scorn last embraced him?_

 

Those thoughts must have pushed through the bond, because she felt a vision from him in response. More of a feeling with fleeting shadows, of a boy in his mother’s arms, before he was sent away…

 

And then...then his form softened in her arms and she felt him sag in grief. Where tension and despondency had been, sorrow now reigned.

 

He fell apart.

 

His sobs wracked through him. She felt it pour over her too through the bond, and she wept alongside him.

 

It felt like hours...and maybe it was.

 

At last, the storm seemed to subside, and she dropped her forehead to the back of his neck. She could smell him in a way that shouldn’t be possible from the other side of the galaxy.

 

“You know he loved you...and believed you were worth it, no matter what happened,” she breathed into his collar.

 

He heaved a large sigh and rolled onto his back. It trapped her arm under the curve of his lower back, not crushing it, but also not allowing it to be free. In turn, it also kept her body close to his.

 

She tentatively leaned into his side.

 

The coldness of space she had never gotten used to. She never thought she would long for the days of the sun of Jakku, but she often wished for its warmth without its torment.

 

The heat radiating off of Ben, however, rivaled that. It begged the question, _How could someone filled with the cold of darkness be so warm?_

 

They couldn’t.

 

His voice was soft now. “I know...and it was the pinnacle of my transgressions. I can’t undo it...and so now it is undoing me.”

 

She leaned her head against his chest, and she felt his arm pulse then hesitate...as if wanting to embrace her but choosing to remain lying on the floor.

 

“You know all he ever wanted was for you to come home.”

 

She felt him stiffen again.

 

His voice broke in disbelief. “Why are you doing this?”

 

She burrowed her head into his chest deeper, drawing her free arm around his torso.

 

“Because Han was right...you are worth it. You are more than you allow yourself to think you are.”

 

She tilted her head up to look at his face. His eyes were dancing between despair and hope as they searched her face to validate the authenticity of her words.

 

“I meant it, Ben. You aren’t alone, and it isn’t too late. It is never too late…I believe that...”

 

Her last words were cut off as his arms finally encircled her and crushed her to his chest.

 

She felt it when the dam broke. The one in Ben’s heart...that one that tried to hem in the light. When his arms came up around her, it cracked. The fissure in it threatened to burst with the pent-up pressure behind it...and so it did.

 

And she thought he was warm before...oh, she did…but she was wrong. This new warmth sent tendrils into her extremities and her heart simultaneously in a way that the sun never could.

 

And the force...it harmonized and hummed around them, calling out its approval. The sight of it in the place it held in her soul was blinding...dazzling…

 

Nothing in her life had ever felt so right...so whole...so...so like…

 

“Rey...I...I think I want to come home. If you think I still can...”

 

She felt his lips press into her forehead, and she knew...she knew then what it was she was trying to think of.

 

_Home._

 

Her lips brushed his cheek, and she whispered right into his ear, “Ben...I think you already are.”


End file.
